Real estate agents: Why use them?

[brounal]

Had a realtor take us to 4-5 crapholes, found a place ourselves and he asked for 3% commission to do the paperwork...ummm no.

Not all agents are good and some are lazy . A good agent will preview if possible properties that their buyers might be interested in. Go to other realtors open houses . But of course not always possible to go thru every house in every area and sometimes new listing comes up and you want to get your buyers thru it.
It doesn't take that much time to go thru a house especially if the buyer doesn't like it. But lots of times we show the not so nice houses so buyer can have a better idea of what is nice when they see it. And sometimes buyers decide they can fix up that not so nice house if the price is right. And how do you know things are overpriced if you don't have other houses to compare to?

I have had generally good luck finding the right houses for my buyers thru the years. But of course can't be 100% right all the time and the odd time they one they like best may be private. I have in many of these cases still negotiated the sale with the for sale by owners as said many people will never deal directly with a for sale by owner. Just as you can have bad experiences with realtors you can easily have bad experiences with owners. Unfortuntely as said many for sale by owners are not honest about defects ,neighbors ,etc And hard to sue someone that might be 1000 or more miles away. A good agent works for his people ,he listens to what they want,guides them and usually finds them a nice house they are happy with.
You are not likely to every find a house you are 100% happy with even if you custom build it after you build it likely there will be things you don't like. And needs and wants change,you get more cars want a bigger garage or buy motorhome want rv parking, have more kids need more bedrooms or bathrooms,etc

The trend lately is to use buyers agreements and oftentimes to have buyer pay a fee if the seller isn't paying a fee like on the private sales. Would you as an agent who are paid 100% commission want to waste tons of gas,time ,give up your weekends, evenings for weeks maybe months and drive around people only to have them buy a private sale or go to another agent after you did spent all your time with them? A desperate agent might be willing to but not an experienced one. My time is worth money. And I could post many testimonials from both buyers and sellers that attest to be happy with the results of my work. Can you please every single person..of course not. You can only do your best.

[brounal]

What happen to me was the seller removed stuff from the house that was written in the contract to be left as part of the house. Even took light fixtures. Carpets were left dirty and more. Our real estate company representive sat down with us and asked what we wanted??? Umm isn't that obvious? Asked us what we wanted the real eastate company to do? I said have them inforce the contract that they wrote up. Their response was not their problem and could do nothing about it. Up to me to go to court over it. So why did I pay them so much money? Another question about the commission. I can't see how a real estate agent for the buyer can negoiate for the seller that well since the hire the selling price the more they make off it.

Well couple part question. Agents write legally binding contracts , as legally binding as possible. Much better 99% of time than what a for sale by owner can write up or many will use generic office depot type of forms which don't protect very well again being so generic.A good realtor often adds in numerous custom changes depending on what type of property,etc.

Now that said a realtor is not a lawyer although we have extensive education in law,contract law,agency law, etc.
We are not judges and cannot force buyers to pay out compensation ,cannot even force them to honor the agreement. But we can write the agreements so that you will normally win a case against them. And sometimes your realtor may compensate and buy a stove for example that the former owner took with them against the contract even pay cleaners to come into the house and clean it. They aren't required to do this stuff but it can be good for public relations,repeat business.
Stuff like this where they take things that are not supposed to be taken is way more common with for sale by owners. intentionally or unintentionally they often take things sometimes because they are angry at the buyers for what they consider a low price sale even if they overpriced their house by a large amount like for sale by owners often do.

A realtor will normally go thru the house on possession date with the buyer and try to contact the other agent/buyers if they have done things they shouldn't have, taken things they were not supposed to take, or left the premises in dirty condition.

As for your second part of the questions. Yes the higher the sale price the higher the commission. When you are representing the seller of course this is what the seller usually wants to get the highest price for his home. A buying agent is more free to try to get the best price for his buyer but of course he is still paid on commission. Obviously though a deal has to be made and that usually involves negotiating the final selling price. There is usually give and take between sellers and buyers with frequent offers, counteroffers. They often meet in the middle is a common term for this. And agents make negotiation much easier with strangers when you are dealing with big ticket items where emotions run rampant.

A good agent is not super greedy. He will consider future business ,keeping his buyer happy and doing a good job of negotiating a good price for his buyer.
When agents act for both buyers and sellers at the same time they have rigid rules that they must follow to ensure both sides are treated fairly and can come to a good conclusion. There are forms to sign for this situation and after doing many of these deals to both parties mutual satisfaction can say that it can work out fine. Fact agent can bring a deal together much much easier than two strangers trying to.

[threadbear]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mol]

I think we all need to use a Realor, but the fees are way too high ( sorry guys) !!

[cv23]

Paying $7k or so was/is worth it for a realtors services but anything over that is not

[OnTheRoadAgain]

The expense is in the percentage figures for commissions. Same work to sell a million dollar home as a half-million dollar home, but more commission. (much like tipping via percentage of cost of meal).
These commission rates can be negotiated before, and after the sale.

[brounal]

IMHO, for all this 'work'', no matter the size the property, for closing a sale you probably deserve about a week or two's worth of average wage.

You are of course entitled to your opinion. Realtors have to take a very serious course these days to get liscenced over 1000 pages of law, high level math,ethics,house construction,appraisal,mortgage qualification,etc.etc Start up costs can easily be north of 5000 dollars and there are pretty high monthly fees to various boards,the office etc. Most every agent works on commission only basis no salary at all. Combine that with price of gas ,repairs and maintenance and price to replace vehicle,cell phone costs,costs usually for other necessary things like laptop,ipads,costs to buy signs, costs for lockboxes ,costs to advertise and promote properties which on the bigger ones can be considerable .Add in the fact you are expected to work long hours ,many times evenings and weekends and that real estate and police have the two highest rates of divorce do to so much time being spent and the hours of these jobs.

It is not easy to sell your own house. If it was their would be no realtors everyone would do it private. I have tried many times in the past when not a realtor to sell my house or properties .Most times with no luck. Listed them and they did sell. And for likely as much money as would have got without using them most times more money even after taking off the commissions. Buyers are going to be taking off that commission from your private sale anyway. And if you are overpriced your house could be dead in the water for a long time.And without representation you are very likely going to get lowballs or high offers from people that don't qualify anyway.

Its not easy to sell a house yourself unless you are in a super hot market which Kelowna is not. And even then you have all the risks of legal action for things you mess up or don't tell the buyers or outright lie about.
These legal costs can run into thousands sometimes hundreds of thousands.Lawyers charge like 700 hour in court!
Agents have to pay extra for insurance to protect them in case of mistake and sometimes things beyond their control.
Selling private is a risk. You can't qualify buyers,you can't negotiate easily face to face you have to always be home when people want to see your house and most times they don't even show up, you have to put it in showable condition.And usually you have to advertise it and that ads up too. A sign on the lawn is almost never enough.

And most buyers are locked nowadays with buyers agreements.And most buyers won't buy private. So you are elminating most of your potential buyers making it hard to get a good price for your house.

Commissions are negotiable. You have various options on commissions out there. You can pick level of service ,representation you want from zero selling 100% yourself where you literally do it all, advertise,show,negotiate,handle the documents,and take all the risk if things go wrong or you get sued. Or you can use various brokers some offer mls listing,some don't ,etc . All sorts of combinations out there for you to choose or you can try it yourself. So far its perfectly legal to sell your own house. But most give up some sooner some later and decide it is worth it to use a professional and some professionals do charge professional rates. Don't usually find lawyers that work for minimum wage or doctors,dentists,
electricians,plumbers,etc. And ones that might charge minimum wage rate might be pretty incompent maybe non liscenced etc.
Advertising is a small portion of what a realtor does. He may or may not do a lot of it or spend a lot on it. Most times its exposure thru the realtor network that sells the home. A referral buyer transferring in, an agents satified past clients that are moving up around or down.
And no not ever listed house is going to sell first listing cycle. In a market like here it might take several 90 day or 180 day cycles. A lot depends on price and finding a buyer. And buyers can be hard to find. Sometimes there are no buyers for you house. You have to wait. But if the house is priced right and the proper things are done to make it sellable staging,repairs,etc
sooner or later it usually will sell.

[brounal]

Paying $7k or so was/is worth it for a realtors services but anything over that is not

Fees are usually tied to price of house. Often the more expensive houses do take a lot more time and sometimes marketing money to achieve a sale. There are less buyers for the more expensive homes and it takes a lot more income level to qualify for them. But as said commissions are negotiable but again amount of commission for someone that works only on commission and has bills to pay is a major motivating factor. Sometimes to get a very expensive or hard to sell home sold or to get it sold quicker say because of a must sell situation divorce, transfer,illness it makes sense to pay an higher commission rate and even seen cash bonuses offered and they can be very effective.

So to say 7 grand or 5 or 20 is kind of a hard thing to do.Especially if this is split two ways. Now if you want to pay me 50k or 100k a year I would be happy to work for no commission.Something also people don't know about realtors is they have to buy insurance in case of lawsuits and the minimum deductibles are very high so that is another big reason it would be foolish for a realtor to work for low commission or low flat fee. Reators are human and mistakes do get made sometimes. In fact nowadays realtors can't even sell their own properties as they have no errors and emissions insurance when they do so. So thats why its rare these days to find a realtor selling his own property. Its human nature to want to save money or try to make more money by saving the commission. But most of the time it just don't work out that way. And don't believe what many sellers say is what they got for their property. If you go to land titles you would be shocked to find out what most times they actually got. Realtors have instant access to all accurate sales prices. Huge differences many times between what private sellers said they got.

The main point here is that its a free country and if you want to try to sell your house yourself you can of course. You could get lucky, you could have no after sale problems,lawsuits,etc. You could maybe even save the commission.

[kgcayenne]

Okay, lawyers, accountants, architects, engineers, etc. all have hourly charge-out rates with a ‘multiplier’ (some regulated by professional associations for ethics) to cover overhead (association fees, admin, etc.). Brounal, If you were to charge an hourly rate would that rate be?






The reason I ask, is when I bought my current place, I used a realtor and felt considering the time and effort spent with me, he earned fair compensation. I actually posted about it some years ago complete with an hourly dollar value; I bet you could find it if you tried. I felt the listing realtor did and earned nothing, and I followed-up where he failed (noted in my first post on this topic). My job has my bill-out rate at an association-prescribed multiplier. I sure wish I’d been able to charge my bill-out rate back to the seller’s realtor.

Another question: If your seller were capable of doing a variety of tasks that would normally cost you overhead, would you negotiate your commission? Some people do contract and project management for a living, and graphic arts/photography for a hobby, so would have a hard time with the idea of paying someone else to do it when they could process/do certain things themselves. What services could you pare down?

[LivinginKelowna]

Why use them is a fantastic question.

When my wife and I purchased our first home, we were "pushed" by the real estate agent with the typical if you don't buy it someone else is going to, no you shouldn't offer them less, pay full price yada yada yada

We did not know what we were doing and had no one to lean on for advice. Huge mistake on our part.

Paid full price, then found out that the house had been for sale for months and months for $25k less than what it was listed for. The people didn't clean it when they left, I ended making several trips to the dump.

All the while all I heard from the RE was what a fantastic deal we had gotten. BS that's all I have to say

I got screwed by a RE once, it will never happen again

As far as I am concerned, they are nothing more than an over paid, greedy vulture like group

I believe there is a direct correlation between the housing bubble and RE's.

[brounal]

Okay, lawyers, accountants, architects, engineers, etc. all have hourly charge-out rates with a ‘multiplier’ (some regulated by professional associations for ethics) to cover overhead (association fees, admin, etc.). Brounal, If you were to charge an hourly rate would that rate be?


The reason I ask, is when I bought my current place, I used a realtor and felt considering the time and effort spent with me, he earned fair compensation. I actually posted about it some years ago complete with an hourly dollar value; I bet you could find it if you tried. I felt the listing realtor did and earned nothing, and I followed-up where he failed (noted in my first post on this topic). My job has my bill-out rate at an association-prescribed multiplier. I sure wish I’d been able to charge my bill-out rate back to the seller’s realtor.

Another question: If your seller were capable of doing a variety of tasks that would normally cost you overhead, would you negotiate your commission? Some people do contract and project management for a living, and graphic arts/photography for a hobby, so would have a hard time with the idea of paying someone else to do it when they could process/do certain things themselves. What services could you pare down?

It obviously is not that easy to charge an hourly rate. You go to a lawyer he charges per hour consultation but much much more in court and has various fees and charges additionally for extra services etc. Doctors bill out at an hourly rate for office visits but pretty sure they charge totally different when they do things like surgeries,etc.I realize that sometimes it seems the realtor did nothing.The sign goes up and the offers come in sometimes within a few days heck sometimes within hours of listing the property. But looking around my neighborhood currently and live in a bit slower tougher price range of home in Upper Mission I am seeing houses sell and houses not sell. I am seeing a few for sale by owners and they have been for sale for quite a long time as well. Now I don't always bother to talk to for sale by owners and they dont always want to talk to me
so don't really know if there houses are overpriced like most for sale by owners or if they show bad or have other maybe hidden or obvious problems with them.
So obivously it takes more than a sign and few little ads in the paper and even putting it on mls but maybe offering no or very tiny commissions to generate a sale.
Sometimes listed houses sell because most agents the good ones have buyers waiting in the wings many as said are first time and afraid to buy on their own, many are transferring in with no clue on price or which area is good or bad,many are now locked up by agents and have to buy thru them and many simply won't buy private from bad experiences with private sellers.
Just as there are realtors that are not professional and give the industry a bad name, private sellers are not known for honesty or for realistic pricing. And only one home to sell makes them often very pushy and hard sell.
A good agent should sell with knowledge never use hard sell. A home is a very important purchase usually one of the biggest in monetary value a person will make in their life.
I always try to find the right home for my clients and never push them to buy one that doesn't feel right. But they also sometimes get mad when you don't nudge them a bit and someone else does buy the property they realize unfortunately maybe just a bit too late that they really wanted.
Important reasons to also do groundwork with your buyers to make sure they qualify and that they have their finanical ducks in a row like deposits ,closing costs, etc. Many private deals don't complete as buyers have no clue on closing costs which can be 10000 or more. BC has some really big twists in there like Property Transfer TAX!!

First timers especially are often short on these closing costs which again is why they use an agent almost every time.

So sorry off track on your first question. If the home sells quick after listing you figure the agent has done nothing and has got a commission for doing nothing. If it takes awhile or doesn't sell first cycle then you blame the agent for not selling it!

I never promise to sell a home.I only say will do my best to try to make it sell. Agents do many things some pretty much behind the scenes. They are contacting their fellow agents about your property, they are pushing it in office tours, realtor opens and public opens. Very few homes sell from opens . Course every for sale by owner things that they will sell their home first open they have. After five or six they give up usually and realize they could be at the beach while the realtor sells the home . With lockbox to make showings easy and convenient for owners and buyers. Owners become free to do what they want ,and of course if they have to leave town temporarily or permanently or the home is vacant for various reasons realtor is even more essential. You get transferred out of city how are you going to show your vacant home?
and who wants to be tied down selling it never going out afraid to miss that one real buyer? Time is worth money too. A home can take weeks to sell,sometimes months and occasionally years. Its unpredictable unfortunately. Thats why real estate can be a great investment ,I have done very very well with it ,fact much better than with stocks . But its not a super liquid one. If you need money out today then likely real estate is not your best investment. Money in bank is but then again the interest you earn on your money in the bank is dismal these days. I have made well over 100% profit on my real estate investments not in Kelowna but back in Saskatchewan. But the market here is similar to what it was there few years back.

As for your question about what if you have the skills ,and time and knowledge to sell your own home? Well as already said a few times commissions are negotiable and you have various options out there in that regard.
My personal take on this is that reallly most of the things you do that you think will sell the house,put up sign, have your own opens, make your own ad are not really what is going to sell it. The power of real estate is more than a yard sign, an ad ,an open house. The true power is the networking of realtors , how they can bring a buyer from another city or even country ,sometimes the buyers don't even see the home physically.I bought my current house from an agent I was not liscenced yet in BC and never physically set foot in the house. Do you really think would have bought that house from the owners directly? It woud have been a huge gamble. And had zero idea of proper price, time on market, location, condition ,etc.
Even with my agents help I still had some issues when bought the house actual site unseen.I had virtual tours, I had a lot of pictures but sellers still hide things and play games. When I got in the house I found they had removed many attached fixtures. By law fixtures stay chattels go with the sellers. They damaged the property when they did this, they moved by themselves and caused more damage by cheaping out and not hiring professional movers,they had a dog that really did a number on the hardwood floors and they moved things without protection on the floors as well likely at time of move out.

I had good grounds to sue and my agent would have backed me up ,he took pictures on possession and was there when I took possession. We could have went to the listing agent and even sued the sellers. But most of this stuff was small potatoes guess they were mad at the price I got on their house. I bet it would have been ten times worse and the house would have looked like a repo if it was private sale! So let this stuff slide. But it still would cost many thousands of dollars to completely fix the damaged hardwood floors and other stuff.But will redo the floors when/if sell the house.
I have no complaints with my realtor. He was professional and did everything right. The selling agent also did pretty much everything right. The sellers in the end are the ones that did things they shouldn't have.

Anyway if you can do all these things and you think that those things will make your house sell without the power of Real Estate nothing is stopping you from trying. But in the end it usually comes down to money or time. You can save money on commissions but only if you net the same amount you would have netted after the commissions come off. So if you are selling the house for 500k and commissions say were 4% total or 20k then if you don't make more than 480k yourself you have not gained anything. If you sell the house for 485,490, 500 you have made 5k , 10 k , 20k but you have given up maybe all summer to do it.And agents possibly could have netted you 500k after commissions if you priced your home too low or have to accept a low offer from mostly the kind of people that buy private sales. And you could easily mess up at closing or get sued directly by buyers sometimes even years after the sale. And you have no insurance against that. And courts don't care if you are private seller.

I think the real issue here is that most people realize that they do need realtors , most everyone like over 90% use them to buy homes as if there is no buyer agreement which are becoming pretty much standard these days as said no realtor wants to waste weeks maybe months on gas, time ,etc to drive people around only to lose them to some private sale or to some other realtor at a open house or whatever. Realtors can be sharks to each other as well , 100% commission tends to do that to people!
Anyway most will agree that using us to buy is a good thing. Few of course on this thread don't. They had a pushy realtor who was greedy or maybe just too hungry and of course that is not good . But please we are all not like that. Some of us are in this business because we like to make people happy ,like to see their eyes light up when they move into that beautiful home. Some are just happy to not be renters, some buy invesment property at the right time and place and become very wealthy. I am lucky in that regard. Seem to have a good eye for the right properties.

What of course there is more disagreement and anger is over using realtors to sell your home. Now the big green eyed monster comes in Commissions. !
And you can complain all you want about them but over 90% or more will still use realtors to sell their home. Most after unsuccessfully trying to do it on their own.
I don't necessarily like what doctors charge and dislike what dentists charge even more. But sooner or later I have to use both of them. I guess its same with realtors. But you don't have to use us. You can sit on your house forever or maybe get lucky and sell it yourself. Sincerely best of luck.

[dcipher]

You are of course entitled to your opinion. Realtors have to take a very serious course these days to get liscenced over 1000 pages of law, high level math,ethics,house construction,appraisal,mortgage qualification,etc.etco

If you truly believe this.....I don't even know what to say. The "exam" is....well it doesn't even compare to the exams taken by some of the other professionals you compare yourself to: Doctors, Layers, Accountants etc.

If by "high level math", you mean very, very, basic high school business math, then you are correct; but the only person who would say this is somebody who has not faced any demanding higher level education. If anybody doubts this, I suggest they look into the type of math required, and see who is telling the truth. As for language skills required to get "liscenced", I'd say your posts stand as testament to that issue.

The premise of the test being demanding, is as ludicrous as your long-winded attempts to obsfucate, and justify the existence and fees of the profession.

[brounal]

Ok you are right its" licensed!". I stand corrected.Rushing when posted that have work to do can't just sit around and type all day. And for your information have two degrees full degree in Business Adminstration and BA as well. And I have taken lots of advanced calculus in University.
And the test that took back in Saskatchewan in 1992 was much much easier . The current test has a passing mark of 65%, a failure rate of over 70% and many drop out after repeated attempts and while think it goes way beyond what is needed to do the job that is the way it is nowadays. The test is also closed book so you have to remember all the formulas for the math questions and they are not simple mortgage questions either. 1000 page book closed book test.100 multiple choice , 3 hour exam with many questions trick questions designed to make you get them wrong. They want to weed out people these days and the newest course is doing that.

Take it and tell me how easy it is. I had very high marks in university. Was happy to pass this test. Fact was sure didn't. But luckily was wrong.

Am I saying that a realtor has to study years and years like a doctor ? No of course not. Most doctors make a lot more than your average realtor. Fact many realtors make very little some only selling a few properties a year. Top producers can make very big money yes, it can be over a million a year. Sorry if that makes some people jealous. But there is no law that makes you hire a realtor to sell your home. No law that makes you use one to buy a home but many properties are going to be tied up and that will severly limit your choices if you don't want to buy listed properties. Again totally your choice.

So you can hate what they make all you want. I love the profession. I love working with people, helping them sell or find a home they want. I do love the compensation when you do a good job. I don't like the long hours, the weeknights, weekends. I don't necessarily like driving all over the place fighting the traffic all the time. Or the hours of paperwork when doing up offers and listings and all the follow up paperwork in regards to those offers and listings . Or all the upgrading courses we have to take. But no job is perfect.

I could cry too about what have to pay for electicians,plumbers, lawyers,dentists. I can also try to do my own work in some of those areas but not usually a very good idea. Realtors serve a purpose. They help people buy and sell their homes. I can give you a hundred or more testimonials from people ,past clients that are glad to attest to that fact. Realtors are not going to work for minimum wage, and they have a lot of expenses . 50k a year gross commissions might mean 20 or 30 % go to the office right off the top. Then they have board fees monthly,national fees, office miscellaneous fees, gas, car wear and tear,phone, advertising, signs, lockboxes, it just goes on and on. So even if they make 100k gross commissions they might only net 50k.

Anyway can't convince people that think we are all bottom feeders and only out for your hard earned money.
But fortunately most people, the vast majority think differently. I see one or two for sale by owner signs in my entire subdivision and they are same ones that were up months ago and months before that. I see many listed properties many with sold signs on them currently and many that have sold in last few months.
So private don't seem to be working too good. And some people, quite a lot especially the wealthier ones do value their time above money. I am happy to pay people to do my home renovations work on my vehicles even though could maybe take the time to do it myself. But they are professional at what they do and I am an amateur. And buying and selling of homes is not simple handshake type of thing it was back the old days. And you can blame lawyers for a lot of that if you want to throw blame around and dishonest private sellers.The lawsuits fly around all too frequently these days on home sales.

[Babbitman]

Its all BS.
It all comes down to MLS.
"What kind of house do you want?"
4 bedroom.
"Where?"
Kelowna.
"Where in Kelowna?"
North Glenmore.
"Price Range?"
Etc, etc.
Plug it in, voila, theres 5 houses in your chosen area, in your price range, that fit your criteria.
Anyone can zero in on them on Mls.ca.

It all comes down to mls. The moment the FSBOs can pay a small flat rate fee to list on mls, the whole real estate agent gig goes down the tubes.

You can tout education, qualifying, legalities etc., all you want, but the bottom line is that its not rocket science.
I know lots of young kids who wrote the exam only because they couldnt get a job doing anything else, and they all passed.
I bought a property through a realtor last fall, she didnt even ask my last name or what I did for a living until I wrote the offer. Dont know how she qualified squat on that.
She couldnt even close on possesion day because her vendor was out of the country.

Most realtors that I know wouldnt show a fsbo to a client, even if it was perfect for them if the consideration offered to the realtor wasnt high enough. That in itself blows the integrity, imo.
By the way, its "errors and omissions".

[brounal]

Its all BS.
It all comes down to MLS.
"What kind of house do you want?"
4 bedroom.
"Where?"
Kelowna.
"Where in Kelowna?"
North Glenmore.
"Price Range?"
Etc, etc.
Plug it in, voila, theres 5 houses in your chosen area, in your price range, that fit your criteria.
Anyone can zero in on them on Mls.ca.

It all comes down to mls. The moment the FSBOs can pay a small flat rate fee to list on mls, the whole real estate agent gig goes down the tubes.

You can tout education, qualifying, legalities etc., all you want, but the bottom line is that its not rocket science.
I know lots of young kids who wrote the exam only because they couldnt get a job doing anything else, and they all passed.
I bought a property through a realtor last fall, she didnt even ask my last name or what I did for a living until I wrote the offer. Dont know how she qualified squat on that.
She couldnt even close on possesion day because her vendor was out of the country.

Most realtors that I know wouldnt show a fsbo to a client, even if it was perfect for them if the consideration offered to the realtor wasnt high enough. That in itself blows the integrity, imo.
By the way, its "errors and omissions".

Wow tough crowd in here !
Mls is hardly the be all end all. But it is one of the important tools for organized real estate and there already are some companies that will list your property on mls now, no idea for how much but they are not full service of course basically just post them. But just said most people don't deal direct with for sale by owners. They don't trust them. Why should they? They have only one house to sell. No objectivity and usually horribly overpriced.And agents work on commission so you figure out if low commissions will be effective in the sale of your property or not.
If there were no agents then you would have to do it all on your own. Not so easy when you have moved across country. Not so easy when it takes months of showing it ,sometimes years to get a sale. Not every property goes in a day.Even though don't think ever met a for sale by owner that didn't think his would.

As for all these kids passing the test well not seeing them in my office much. Sure a few will get through there are some bright people out there regardless of age. But not easy for young kids to be taken seriously anyway in this business.
You don't drop 500k ,1mill every day and usually you want an experienced agent.

No idea why the realtor didn't prequalify you, most would and should. I do or deal with them after they have prequalified at bank and even a bank prequal is not set in stone they can still fall thru sometimes, especially the superficial verbal prequal.
More detailed prequal is of course better. Most buyers for sale by owner don't even bother with verbal prequal. Most are clueless on the whole procedure. Don't know about land tranfer tax, dont have the money to close..back out mid deal from buyers fear /remorse don't have their house sold and many need it sold first.Don't know about property disclosures,don't know how to search landtitles for funny little things that can bite you in the butt sometimes, waste time trying to buy properties where owners own more than they are selling for or on propeties that are all messed up legally and going into foreclosure or on properties where the owners don't even have title they have bought them on rent to own or agreements for sale. Fact most buyers have no idea on any other financing techniques other than cash.

But can see that as said many of you are hardcore about realtors and many buyers are fortunately hardcore about not trusting for sale by owners.But hey I guess someday if everyone sells their own home I will have to go do something else.But fortunately investing in real estate has made it so don't have to work at job that don't like. And if I think its a pain to sell my own house after trying it when wasn't realtor back in Regina last year with all the knowledge I had from ten years in the business back there , but did take a ten year break to do property management , then can't see how anybody else can think its so easy to do. But I have great respect for those of you that do it on your own and some of you should likely consider a career in real estate.

Now gave my side of things and some of you have given yours.So guess we can agree to disagree. And one additional note. If you think selling your own residential property is easy try selling your own commercial property,businesses, multifamilies , leases and commercial buildings. Course that test is a 5 minute one that any 16 year old can pass too!